There was a great deal of hubbub last year when the SEC announced it was going to start policing companies' climate change disclosures. As I pointed out at the time, however, the claims that these disclosures will be "silly" or will produce a "massive subsidy to charlatans" are overstated.
As it turns out, it seems to have been much ado about nothing:
One year after issuing controversial guidance for following environmental-risk disclosure rules, the Securities and Exchange Commission appears to have given the matter little attention.
In a review of comments to regulatory filings made in 2010, law firm Davis Polk found only six instances of SEC staffers wanting more information about businesses' disclosures related to risks tied to climate change (see chart below). "I would have expected more comments, given that they had gone out of their way to issue the release," says Betty Moy Huber, counsel at the New York firm. ...
Perhaps it was all just a PR stunt of some sort.
